Dr. Sushila Nayyar is perhaps best known for being the personal doctor to Mahatma Gandhi. She can be seen besides him, supporting him and helping him walk in a lot of photos. Her story however goes much further than these photos. She was a freedom fighter who played pivotal roles in the struggle against British. She went on to be the Union Minister of Health and set up the first rural medical college of Independent India. Her political career and public health advocacy played important roles in shaping the healthcare systems in a young and developing India.

The relatives were afraid to shelter the children of rebels

Sushila Nayyar was born in 1914 in a small town in a middle-class family which was devoted to Gandhi. Sushila had two older brothers, oldest was Pyarelal Ji, who was serving as an aid to Gandhi. She met Gandhi the first time when she was just six years old when her mother took her along to meet him in Rohtak where he asked her to meet him later in Lahore instead. Sushila’s father had already passed away and her mother wanted to request Gandhi to let her son Pyarelal return home to take care of her family. During the meeting with Gandhi, her mother could not say what she had rehearsed and instead asked him to return Pyarelal after a few years. Noticing Sushila’s non-khadi clothes, Gandhi later asked her mother “Why don’t you give this little girl to me”, a request her mother denied. While Sushila was at a boarding school, her mother was often in prison for activities related to the Satyagrah movement. This brought her close to the Ashram where she used to spend her vacations. “The relatives were afraid to shelter the children of rebels.” She said in an interview with Fred J Blum.

Sushila studied Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, from where she earned her MBBS. She took a course of studies in maternal and child health in Kolkata. There she helped Gandhi while he was suffering from High Blood Pressure. On insistence of Dr. B. C. Roy, Gandhi’s doctor, she returned with and stayed with Gandhi for a month to monitor his health. In 1939, Gandhi travelled to Rajkot and took Sushila with him as his ‘Personal Physician’. She wrote in her book ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment’, “I was flattered but felt somewhat embarrassed by the title as I was just a raw graduate, very young and inexperienced. When Journalists approached me for the news about Gandhiji’s health, I could hardly talk with them”.

Gandhiji was not the man to keep a doctor for himself. So, I became the doctor for all the Ashram inmates and the villagers around Sevagram. I set up a dispensary in Sevagram, and learnt to train and use volunteers to fight epidemics and give medical care to villagers. In this way I was initiated into the concept of integrated, preventive and curative medical practice and community medicine which, as everyone today agrees, must form the basis of India’s health services.

Sushila completed her exams for Doctorate of Medicine from the same college in 1942 and was awaiting results. She was planning to travel back to Sevagram but got a tip from her acquaintance working for the Viceroy’s office that there were going to be mass arrests in Bombay during an AICC meeting. Quoting her, “I had no notion at that time that I was going to plunge headlong into the Quit India Movement on reaching Bombay. I arrived in Bombay on August 8, as the train had to do a detour because of breaches on the railway line owing to heavy rains. The next day I found myself in Prison.”

On 8th August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi declared the ‘Quit India Movement’ at Gowalia Tank Maidan after a near unanimous vote at the AICC meeting. It was a clear demand that the British leave India in an orderly manner. Gandhi was arrested the following morning under the Defence of India Ordinance. Kasturba Gandhi was to deliver the first speech after this in Gandhi’s stead and it was expected that she would be arrested. Since Kasturba was not in good health, others asked Sushila to go with her to the meeting and expectedly, the prison, since she was a doctor. Kasturba Gandhi along with Sushila and her brother were arrested before the speech from Birla House, they were taken to Arthur Road Prison in Bombay. Before their arrest, a police officer pleaded Kasturba “Mother, you should stay at home; you are too old for such things”. After Kasturba didn’t reply, he turned to Sushila and said “You are too young, you should not go to this meeting”. Sushila felt he was mocking her. After they didn’t respond, he smiled and put them under arrest.

I was happy that at last I had an opportunity to participate in the struggle for India’s Independence and to go to prison as a Satyagrahi

On her first day in prison, Sushila did not eat anything despite being very hungry, she slept the whole day till next morning. The Jail Superintendent had informed her and Kasturba that they were not allowed any contact from the outside world. Quoting her “I was happy that at last I had an opportunity to participate in the struggle for India’s Independence and to go to prison as a Satyagrahi”. Soon after, they were transferred to Aga Khan Palace Detention Camp in Pune, the ‘Luxury Prison’ where Gandhi was being kept. The Detention Camp was considerably more comfortable compared to the Arthur Road Prison in Bombay. Sushila tried to get a word out about their whereabouts using a prescription but her plan was denied by Gandhi.

One day in August 1942, at Aga Khan Palace, Mahadev Desai, the personal secretary of Gandhi who was being kept in the same prison, passed away after a sudden heart attack. During following few months, Sushila took to reading books and reciting Bhagwad Gita and Ramayana to requisite strength and keep busy. She took over the work of compiling the memoirs of Bapu which was undertaken by Mahadev Desai. Her journal titled ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment’ describes her life during this period. A few months later, on 22 February 1944, Kasturba Gandhi also passed away. During this time her brother was also transferred to the same prison. Gandhi and his aids including Sushila and her brother were released on 5th May 1944. This was done because Gandhi was in poor health and had a severe case of Malaria, the British Government was concerned about the riots if he died in prison. In total, Sushila and her brother Pyarelal spent a total of 93 weeks, or almost 2 years in the prison.

This was during the times of pre-partition riots. During this she set up a small dispensary in the ashram for the villages around. Soon, this dispensary was converted into a clinic donated by G D Birla and soon after, it was turned into a full hospital named after Kasturba. We don’t know enough details about her story during this time, but we know that she was actively involved in the rehabilitation of people post partition. She was deployed by Gandhi in riot affected areas to serve as medical help and recruit volunteers to aid the injured or pregnant women. She was also deployed at Noakhali in 1946 in Bengal, tending to the sick and injured and post-partum women after the riots. She was often deployed alone, to work with the locals and source everything on her own.

In 1948, Sushila was sent to Pakistan, a dangerous journey back then, to find out if Hindus and Sikhs living there are being harassed or in danger. It was during this journey that in Multan she learned that Gandhi had been shot. She says “the Deputy Commissioner had invited us for a cup of tea. We were having tea in this house when a woman rushed in and said, ‘Look, what this world has come to, they say Gandhi has been shot.’ I was standing with a cup of tea in my hand. Naturally I was upset, so I sat down”. She made a night journey back to India and on the way her dread was confirmed by Nehru’s voice on the radio “The Light has gone out...”. She continued to serve the riot-affected areas for some time and in June of 1948, moved to United States to refresh her Medical knowledge.

She joined the Johns Hopkins University to receive a degree in Doctor of Public Health. She returned to India in 1950 after that. Upon her arrival she was appointed the Chief Medical Officer at Faridabad. Faridabad was a refugee township where she worked for over a year tending to the migrants and other villages surrounding the township. During this period, she set up a Tuberculosis Sanatorium and became the head of Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation. Eventually, in 1952, she was convinced by her associates to stand for the elections in Delhi state. She became the first Minister of Health of Delhi. She was additionally given three more portfolios, Rehabilitation, Transport, Charitable Endowments of Delhi. After three years in 1955, she became the speaker in the Delhi State Vidhan Sabha.

I found working with Mrs Gandhi was not congenial. She had a strange way of working

In 1956 when Delhi ceased to be a state, she stood for and won the elections from Jhansi Constituency for Lok Sabha in 1957 and then again in 1962. She served as the Union Minister for Health, Local Self-Government, Country and Town Planning from 1962-64 in Nehru Cabinet. After Nehru’s death, she again served as the Union Minister for Health and Family Planning from 1964-67 in Lal Bahadhur Shastri’s cabinet. She also served as the president of National Society for Prevention of Blindness starting 1964 and All India Prohibition Council starting 1967. She again stood for elections in 1967 and won, however she did not enjoy working with Indira Gandhi. Quoting her “I found working with Mrs Gandhi was not congenial. She had a strange way of working”. In the 1969 Congress Split, she sided with the faction against Indira, post that in 1971 she contested lost the elections.

Even during this period, she kept herself focused on her mission of Rural Public Healthcare. She set up the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, the first rural medical college in India, in 1969. During the emergency she kept working with the masses against oppression. At a certain point she was started being harassed by police for her work. She recalls in her interviews with Fred J Blum, “On 2 October 1975, we had gone to Rajghat. The police surrounded us. They wanted me, and Acharya Kripalani to accompany them”. A request for which she replied “Without the warrant I will not accompany you”. Continuing, she narrates, “So we sat there for about four hours surrounded by the police. And then the higher-ups must have said, ‘No, don’t arrest them’. So, they didn’t arrest us”. When the Janta Party was formed, she joined and contested in elections in 1977. Quoting her “I fought the elections as a Janata Party member and won. I am now working in Parliament, working for my medical institution, working for prohibition, National Society for Prevention of Blindness, and I have been working since 1950 for the children of underprivileged people, particularly the untouchables and other slum dwellers”.

In 1995, Sushila suffered a heart attack, although heart conditions and osteoarthritis did not stop her from continuing her work. She dedicated her life to first the Independence of India, then Public Health, and in her last years, Public Education. She became the Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapeeth and resolved the issues plaguing it from within. She passed away of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 95. She never married or had a family of her own, public health was her only focus. It would not be disingenuous to say that her contributions as a freedom fighter, public healthcare official, and educator have shaped this country in its early years for the better. She wrote several books during her lifetime, most about Gandhi, the work she undertook from her brother and Mahadev Desai. She received a number of awards including the presidential award for her books and contributions to the public healthcare systems in India.

Her life sets and example on how sometimes our lives are beyond our control, either for a cause greater than us or because others want us to do something for them. She proved however that it is possible to rise even beyond one’s duties. Despite being involved in most politically charged periods of Indian history, she stuck with the truth. Through her life, she was faced with multiple choices. These choices often boiled down to the truth vs what was easy, and without fail, she chose the Truth. From not avoiding Jail and undertaking her duties to standing up to the Mahatma himself when it was needed. She chose to not give in to people who considered her ‘just a little girl’. People speculated about her relationship with Bapu but she didn’t pay attention to them. She even stood against the forces of one of the biggest oppressive regimes in the world. When the world was asking her to sit down, or move out of the way, she planted herself like a tree, looked the world in the eye and said ‘No, you move’.

Sources:

1. https://www.mgims.ac.in/index.php/sushila-Nayyar-birth-centenary
2. http://archive.nmji.in/archives/Volume-14/issue-2/obituary.pdf
3. https://archive.org/details/Hind.Gandhi.Last.Imprisonment/page/n29/mode/2up
4. https://retrospective.jhu.edu/our-collection/paul-harper-with-sushila-Nayyar
5. Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred J Blum by Usha Thakkar and Jayshree Mehta [2011] ISBN 9788132105572.

Lalitha was born on 27th August 1919 in a middle class Telegu family in Chennai. She was the fifth of seven children. Her father and all of her brothers were engineers from College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), University of Madras, while her sisters were educated up to 10th grade. While it is still a concern, the practice of early marriage was common during those times. Lalitha was married at the age of 15. Her parents insisted that she continue her education even after marriage. Although it came to a stop after she completed her Secondary School or 10th grade education. In 1937, at the age of 18 she gave birth to her daughter Syamala. Just four months later, her husband passed away.

Being a young mother is difficult, being a widow with a baby, even more so. Widows in India face a lot of challenges, often based in tradition. Some such traditions have been extremely inhumane. From Sati, which forced women into a ritualistic immolation on husband’s pyre to having to renounce all wealth and their identity. In most parts of India women are still forced or socially pressured into giving up vanity, sometimes including only wearing white sarees and shaving their heads, and be excluded from all social events. These issues and other factors force women to live out their lives in Ashrams especially made for them. At Society of Women Engineers’ first international conference in 1964, Lalitha said “150 years ago, I would have been burned at the funeral pyre with my husband’s body “. Her daughter Syamala said (to The Better India), “When my father passed away, mom had to suffer more than she should have. Her mother-in-law had lost her 16th child and took out that frustration on the young widow. It was a coping mechanism and today, I understand what she was going through. However, my mother decided not to succumb to societal pressures. She would educate herself and earn a respectable job.”

Lalitha wanted to become self-sufficient and support her daughter, so she decided to get a professional degree. She joined Queen Mary’s College in Chennai and completed her Intermediate education with first class. Women in India had started earning regular degrees by now. Some of the most famous pioneers being Janaki Ammal and Kadambini Ganguly. Most of these were in Medical field but a career in medicine did not seem appealing to Lalitha as she did not want to leave baby Syamala during field work. Instead, she wanted to become an engineer like her father and brothers. She wanted a regular-hours job so she could spend time with and raise her daughter. Her father, Pappu Subba Rao was a teacher at CEG, he approached the principal Dr. K.C. Chacko on her behalf. While her grades were good enough for a man to get into CEG, they had to not only convince the Principal but also take permission from the British government. The Principal and Director of Public Instruction RM Statham, decided it was time for the college to admit Women Students.

Lalitha was granted an admission in 1940 into the four-year electrical engineering program. After the initial reluctance, authorities and officials of the college were supportive of her. Syamala says, “Contrary to what people might think, the students at amma’s college were extremely supportive. She was the only girl in a college with hundreds of boys but no one ever made her feel uncomfortable and we need to give credit to this. The authorities arranged for a separate hostel for her too. I used to live with my uncle while amma was completing college and she would visit me every weekend”. After a few months, at the initiative of Lalitha’s father, CEG advertised open admissions for women. As a result, two more women entered the college in the same year, Leelamma George and P. K. Theressia, who were remarkable in their own right.

Lalitha, Thressia, and Leelamma graduated from CEG in 1943. Syamala explains, “Both of them were juniors to my mother by a year. However, all three of them graduated together because the second world war was at its peak in 1944 and the university decided to cut down the engineering course by a few months”. Thressia and Leelamma got their regular degree in Civil Engineering. Thressia went on to be the first woman Chief Engineer for PWD. Lalitha stayed for another year and got her Honors Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1944. All of their certificates had handwritten ‘She’ in place of ‘He’.

Lalitha started an apprenticeship at Jamalpur Railway Workshop in 1943 to complete practical training for her degree. After one year at Jamalpur, she joined the Central Standards Organization of India as an Engineering Assistant. Her job was in Shimla which made it possible for her to work and live with her Brother’s family. Her sister in law helped her raise the then six-year-old Syamala. She stayed at this job for a couple of years till 1946, after which at her father’s request she left to support him in his research. Her father filed a number of patents during this time, presumably with her help. A few of them being Jelectromonium, which was an electrical musical instrument, a smokeless oven, and an electric flame producer. While she enjoyed it, she could not continue it because of financial issues. In 1948, she joined Associated Electrical Industries, a British firm. She decided to apply for this job also because this was in Kolkata, she could live with her second brother which would help with raising Syamala. Additionally, being a single mother and a widow, it would have been difficult for her to find a place to live.

Syamala says, “My aunt lived in Kolkata and had a son about my age. We were very close and so, amma used to go to work leaving me with my cousin and aunt. That’s how I grew up. Although, today, I can understand how important my mother is in the history of women’s education in India as well as in the history of engineering, back then, all I knew was that my mom is an engineer—just another engineer”. She also recalls her grandparent’s role in her upbringing during this time, “While my mom was in AEI, I was in school in Chennai living with my maternal grandparents. They played a big role in my life as long as I lived with them. My grandfather encouraged me in sports and came to watch my athletic competitions representing my school. He also incorporated politics into my life. When I came to live with my mom in Calcutta and joined Loreto College, he would come watch me playing basketball and tennis. My grandmother also had a political streak and so now I am very open about my political bent of mind”.

She had a very long and stable career at AEI. She worked in the engineering department and the sales division. Over the years she worked at multiple projects most notably she worked on the electrical generators for the Bhakra Nangal Dam, one of the largest dams in India. She also worked on transmission lines design and later on in execution of contracts. Syamala’s husband and Lalitha’s son-in-law who is also an electrical engineer explains, “Gradually the designing part was discarded and the activity focused on contract engineering, serving as an intermediary between the equipment manufacturers in England and the local installation and servicing engineers. She continued to work in the same office of AEI, which in later years was taken over by the General Electric Company (GEC) and retired after over thirty odd years.”

Council of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), London, appointed her an associate member in 1953, she later became a full member. Another highlight of her career would be invitation to the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES) in New York. She represented India at the conference in June 1964 in a private capacity as there was no Indian Chapter then. The goal of the conference was to increase the participation of women in STEM. Talking about this conference, Lalitha said “The conference resolved to encourage women to increase their participation in the professional societies in their countries and improve their qualifications not only during their student days but throughout their professional life. It also resolved to maintain the central file of Women Engineers and Scientists used for this conference and enlarge it as much as possible”. On the way back she toured AEI factories in the UK.

After coming back from the conference Lalitha started working for the cause of women in engineering. She gave a number of interviews in magazines and newspapers about the importance of allowing women to participate in the field. She encouraged more Indian women engineers to attend the Second International Conference for Women Engineers & Scientists, held in Cambridge in 1967. As a direct result, five women engineers were able to attend the event. Lalitha retired in 1977 and started traveling with her sister. At the age of 60, she had a brain aneurysm and after a few weeks, she passed away.

Syamala says, she never felt the absence of her father because of the strong support she received from her mother. “I had the most open-minded mother of those times. She never stopped me from doing what I wanted, but at the same time kept me on track. She encouraged me to teach early and made me go on to completing my BEd after marriage”.

Lalitha believed that widows should remarry, although she herself never did. Syamala adds, “She never remarried and never made me feel the absence of a father in my life. She believed that people come into your life for a reason and leave when the purpose is over. I never asked her why she never got married again. But when my husband asked her, she had replied, “To take care of an old man again? No, thank you!”

Syamala studied Science and Education and was a teacher for over 30 years in India. Her husband is a retired scientist and so are her children. In 1994 she moved to the US and continues to teach mathematics to her students in her 80s. This shows how allowing one-person education can have exponential results over generations. Lalitha’s achievements are incredible, they could not have been possible without the extensive support structure that she had. A common theme among all the stories we have explored so far is supportive parents. In Lalitha’s case, her father not only encouraged her but also put his efforts behind other women who wanted to study. Lalitha’s siblings and in-laws all raised Syamala as their own. Lalitha lived with her brother and sister in law for 35 years, as a family, supporting each other.

A single candle is enough to defy the darkness, but a bunch of them are enough to bring about a revolution.

I would like to specially thank Ms. Syamala Chenulu, who took the time out to help me with a lot of information, context, and filled in some gaps in the story of her mother.

As you might have noticed, this article was slightly shorter than our regular ones. We have decided on some changes and want to give you all an update. Since this is a new project and we are getting unexpectedly good response we will continue to experiment and try to improve this. In coming days, we will be putting out one episode per two weeks as compared to a weekly episode right now. This additional time would allow us to produce better content with better research. This would also allow us to expand and get more voices on this platform. There are new things coming and we are excited to share them with you. Thank you for sticking with us, and I would also like to thank all my collaborators who have helped me so far.

Sources:

1. https://mathisarovar.com/2017/05/20/love-of-electrical-engineering-was-in-her-blood-lalitha-rao-the-first-indian-woman-engineer/
2. https://www.thebetterindia.com/185532/india-first-woman-engineer-a-lalitha-inspiring-history/
3. https://www.thehindu.com/society/indias-first-woman-electrical-engineer/article19102674.ece
4. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5b/66/69/219ebaeb4ef08e/US2065023.pdf

As a young girl, Maryam used to make up stories in her head. In her creations, one day she’d be a leader, one day a hero, and some days she’d travel the world to fulfill her destiny. Perhaps even more remarkable was her real life. She dared to dream in a nation fresh out of war and challenged the social norms around. She saw the connections which threaded different fields of mathematics and explored the web of hyperbolic surfaces. Her research not only illuminated her own path, but opened avenues for others who came after her. She was the first woman to be awarded a Field Medal in Mathematics. We might know little of her, but every little girl in Iran knows the name.

Maryam Mirzakhani was born on 12th May 1977 in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. She had no dreams of becoming a mathematician. As a child all she wanted to do was to read all the fictional books she could find and watch TV documentaries of famous people including Marie Curie and Helen Keller. She was inspired to become a writer and from a young age had a habit of doodling. She completed her elementary school education in Tehran about the time when the Iran-Iraq war ended. She moved to a Farzanegan School for her middle school education. Farzanegan Schools were gendered schools established by Iran’s National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents. These schools had better resources and better paid teachers. “I think I was the lucky generation”, she said, during an interview, “any older I would not have got these opportunities”.

In the same school in 6th grade she met Roya Beheshti, who would become her lifelong friend. Mirzakhani and Beheshti found a common interest to indulge in. They used to explore the bookstores near their school and buy random books off the shelves. Books during this period were very cheap and they weren’t allowed to browse or read them in stores. Beheshti says, “I remember a time when Maryam was not good at math. In the first year Maryam was the top student in every class except math”. She adds “Maryam got her test back and she got 16/20” – “Maryam was so frustrated that before putting the test in her bag, she tore it apart and said that, that was it for her. And she was not going to even try to do better. This is Maryam when she was 11. That didn’t last long, after the summer break she came back with her confidence regain and she started to do very well”. Mirzakhani’s Mathematics teacher did not think of her as a talented student, which was a blow to her confidence. At that age “it is so important what others see in you”, Mirzakhani said in an interview with Quanta.

The following year, however, Mirzakhani had a more encouraging teacher and as a result, her confidence re-emerged. Beheshti and Mirzakhani found another common interest in Mathematics after that. They both graduated to high school where they found questions to a national competition to pick candidates for International Olympiad in Informatics. They managed to solve three of the six problems over the course of several days. This gave Mirzakhani something to aspire for. They met their principal and demanded problem solving classes in mathematics comparable to the ones being taught in Boys’ school. Mirzakhani recalled her principal as being very supportive and strong, “If we really wanted something, she would make it happen”. Their principal encouraged them even though there had never been a girl on the International Team. Mirzakhani believed that the support and encouragement she received from the principal “has influenced my life quite a lot”.

Mirzakhani and Beheshti became the first women qualified for the Iranian Math Olympiad team in 1994. Mirzakhani earned a Gold medal that year scoring 41 out of 42 points, Beheshti won the Silver Medal with 35/42 points. Mirzakhani wasn’t done yet; she returned to the Olympiad the following year and achieved a perfect score and became the first Iranian to do so and earn two gold medals. Her solutions lead to her first published paper titled “Decomposition of Complete Tripartite Graphs Into 5-Cycles” in 1995 at the age of 18. So far Mirzakhani had enticed by the challenge, in her own words, “I got excited about it may be just as a challenge, but then I realized that it is really nice and I enjoy it”. Olympiads had ignited her deep love for mathematics. Mirzakhani completed her Batchelor of Science in Mathematics from Sharif University in 1999. During this she and Beheshti wrote a book titled “Elementary Number Theory, Challenging Problems”. This book they wrote when they were 22 remains a standard reference for Olympiad Training in Iran even today.

She had a sort of daring imagination. She would formulate in her mind an imaginary picture of what must be going on, then come to my office and describe it. At the end, she would turn to me and say, "Is it right?" I was always very flattered that she thought I would know.

After graduation, Mirzakhani went to graduate school at Harvard University on a Scholarship. She started attending seminars by Prof. Curtis T. McMullen. A Field Medalist for his work in Complex Dynamics, Hyperbolic Geometry, and Teichmüller theory. Even though the subjects fascinated her she didn’t understand much of what was being talked about. She started going to McMullen’s office and discussing questions while scribbling notes in Farsi. “She came to my office one day, she was quite humble and unpretentious, and she began peppering me with all sorts of questions. I think I was struck by her intense curiosity and drive”, McMullen says “- I asked her to report on a paper about the phenomenon, counting the number of simple loops, on a doughnut, on a surface with one hole. And She understood this paper very thoroughly and gave a nice talk and then to my surprise she arrived in my office and said ‘well I think I have an approach to doing this for surfaces with any number of holes, 2, 3, 4, up to infinity’. Then completely on her own initiative began developing this theory of counting simple closed loop on a surface. It was very intricate and it opened up a lot of topics that are not usually thought of as related to one another”.

Mirzakhani became fascinated with Hyperbolic Surfaces. In ‘Real Life’ we look at things which are arranged in flat surfaces. The x-y plane and the shortest distance two points being a straight line are properties of Euclidian Geometry, wherein the curvature of space is zero. If the curvature of space is positive it is called elliptical or spherical geometry, the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line. If the curvature is negative, it is called Hyperbolic Geometry. Every point of this geometry is curved like a saddle. Any surface eventually forming in on itself. We can classify surfaces into classes based on the number of holes in them which are called ‘genus’. A sphere has genus 0, a doughnut has genus 1, and a pretzel has genus 2, and so on. Hyperbolic geometry is famously difficult to do visualize or even imagine. Mirzakhani however had an over-abundance of imagination; she could not just understand but also form analogies and visualize the shapes and structures like characters from a story.

The ‘closed loops’ on surfaces that Mirzakhani Studied are called `Closed Geodesics`. Geodesics are simply the ‘straight lines’ of curved space which join two points along the shortest distance. Imagine a surface like a sphere, if you start drawing a straight line from any point, it will eventually close back on itself, this is called a ‘Closed Geodesic’. A sphere or surface with genus 0 is easier because doesn’t matter where you start, you will always end up at the same point forming a circle. Now imagine a genus 1 surface, a doughnut, it is harder to start cutting it in a straight line so that you reach the exact point again, slight deviation when you start could lead you in a spiral. Now imagine a shape like the letter eight or symbol for infinity, it is even harder. Additionally, most of the closed geodesics of this shape would intersect with themselves. Some however would not, these are called `Simple geodesics`. These Simple Geodesics are important because they can be studied to define and study the entire surface. One of the most important questions during Mirzakhani’s time was ‘How many simple closed geodesics of a specified length can a surface have’.

The majority of mathematicians will never produce something as good — “and that’s what she did in her thesis.

Mirzakhani’s doctorate thesis in 2004 under Prof. McMullen answered this question. Which he explained rather proudly, during her Field Medal ceremony. “This will be my first result of Mirzakhani that I would like to discuss. So, the problem is, count the number of simple loops on a fixed Riemann surface of a length less than equal to L. Most loops on a Reimann Surface cross each other. It is very hard for a loop on a Reimann Surface to not cross itself. By Investigating this very natural and naïve question about one Reimann Surface, Maryam was led to a cascade of unexpected new results. First, she gave new proof of the Witten Conjecture. Proof and intuition of it was String theory, and what Mirzakhani was able to do was show that this formula flows forth naturally”. Mirzakhani’s work was important on its own but she was also able to weave in this into other major research questions. One of them was a Witten Conjecture in Mathematics of String theory, and another was concerning the volume of “Moduli” space. She also gave very crucial statistics of such surfaces depending on their genus.

It was her ability to see these connections that made Mirzakhani’s work so special. It is atypical for a research fellow to make such an impact with their doctoral thesis. Solving each of these problems would have been consequential on their own, Mirzakhani did both and also found the connections between them. She published her thesis in three papers in top journals of Mathematics.

Jan Vondrak, recalled a run with his future wife Maryam, “She’s very petite, and I was in good shape, so I thought I’d do well, and at first, I was ahead”, “But she never slows down. After half an hour, I was done, but she was still running at the same pace”. Mirzakhani had similar approach to her work, she was a self-proclaimed ‘slow mathematician’. She liked to chew on her problems for months or years and eventually produce results which were more elegant than anyone expected. Her work, almost always involved doodling, a habit she had from her childhood. “She has these huge pieces of paper on the floor and spends hours and hours drawing what look to me like the same picture over and over”, Vondrak said. During an interview, Mirzakhani said “the process of drawing something helps you somehow to stay connected”. Mirzakhani and Vondrak’s daughter Anahita, used to exclaim, “Oh, Mommy is painting again!” when Maryam was working.

In 2006 Maryam was working on the problem of hyperbolic surfaces when its geometry is deformed. Imagine twisting the letter 8 from the middle. Before her work, “this problem was completely unapproachable”, McMullen said. She compared this mechanism of deforming shapes with a type of earthquake. “With a one-line proof”, McMullen said, “she constructed a bridge between this completely opaque theory and another theory that’s completely transparent”. “It illustrates a kind of thinking that I think is very novel and is very characteristic of Mirzakhani’s research. Namely, I have been discussing Moduli spaces as if it has these two different personalities that are battling for control. What Mirzakhani did to prove this result is she found a bridge between these two sides. And then you can take whatever somebody has proven on one side of the bridge and carry it to the other side and call it your own theorem. So that’s the kind of thinking that I think just was completely unexpected and is bound to lead to many new results and many new ways of looking at Moduli Spaces”.

- most of the time, doing mathematics for me is like being on a long hike with no trail and no end in sight.

Maryam began working with ‘one of her favourite collaborators’, Alex Eskin in 2006. He recalls “She is very optimistic, and that’s infectious”, he said. “When you work with her, you feel you have a much better chance of solving problems that at first seem hopeless”. After doing a few projects together, they decided to work on the ‘Billiards Problem’. “If you have a Billiards table and you start from a point and hit the ball and it hits the boundaries and it moves say forever. You want to see the trajectory of the ball. Would it cover all your billiard table? Can you find closed billiard paths? Interestingly enough this is an open question in general, if you don’t place any restrictions on the angles of the polygon that you started (with)”. Billiards provides some of the simplest examples of dynamical systems. Dynamical systems are systems that evolve over time according to a given set of rules. The behaviour of the ball has proven unexpectedly hard to pin down. “Rational billiards got started a century ago, when some physicists were sitting around saying, ‘Let’s understand a billiard ball bouncing in a triangle” said Alex Wright, a researcher at Stanford. “they thought they would be done in a week, but 100 years later, we’re still thinking about it.”

Imagine a Billiards table, if a ball moving is bounced off a side, it would do so in a specific angle. If you imagine placing a mirror at this side, you’d see the reflection of the ball continuing in the same direction in the mirror table. You can therefore keep extending these mirror tables and the ball would keep moving in the same direction. If you end up with a table oriented in the same way as the original table, you can assume that the ball’s path is a loop. If you glue together these mirrors in a hyperbolic space you will end up with a surface of genus 2. Before Mirzakhani, McMullen, her advisor had famously provided calculations and results on this problem. His research was hailed as a huge advance in the field. Although even before he had published, Maryam, still a graduate student, had approached him and asked “Why did you just do genus two?”. “That’s the kind of person she is,” he said. “What she sees hints of, she wants to understand more clearly.”

After five years of slow and tedious work, in 2013, Mirzakhani and Eskin succeeded in generalising McMullen’s results to all surfaces of genus more than two. It was Mirzakhani’s optimism and tenacity that kept the pair going, Eskin said. “Sometimes there were setbacks, but she never panicked”, he said. Their work has been hailed as a massive improvement in the tools available to study Moduli spaces. “It’s as if we were trying to log a redwood forest with a hatchet before, but now they’ve invented a chain saw”, Alex Wright said. Mirzakhani herself was amazed that they didn’t give up, “If we knew things would be so complicated, I think we would have given up”, she said. “I don’t know; actually, I don’t know. I don’t give up easily”.

In 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman, and the first Iranian, to be awarded a Fields Medal in Mathematics. Which is considered the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. “Maryam never liked to brag or even talk about her achievements”, said Beheshti. Maryam when asked about her contributions once said, “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve had a very huge contribution”. When she received the email regarding her winning the Fields Medal, she assumed that the account from which the email was sent had been hacked. She didn’t want to be the ‘Face or women in Mathematics’, she much rather wanted to focus on her research. “There are really many great female mathematicians doing great things”, she said. Newspapers in Iran and some worldwide, ran old photos of her with a Hijab on or edited her images to add a scarf on her.

In 2013, an year before her medal, she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She started treatments and was gradually getting better. She didn’t want to slow down and started planning a collaboration with Alex Wright regarding a “Magic Wand” for understanding Billiards and Translation Surfaces. In 2016, her cancer reappeared had spread to her bones and liver. Maryam gave her health the priority and started spending more time with her family. However, she didn’t stop carrying out her responsibilities. She still taught classes, graded papers, and guided students. While her parents were in Iran and could not get a visa to visit her because of a blanket ban by the USA, her husband and her sister were with her. Her parents could finally meet her in her last months. In 2017, at the age of 40, she passed away. The nation mourned, and its president tweeted a photo of her without a Hijab on to break taboo. She was the first woman since 1976 whose photo was published in Iranian newspapers without a scarf.

“It was a difficult time, but still when it came to anything related to math it was uplifting and inspiring to talk to her. She had such a positive personality, it really always felt good to talk to her”. She one said, “You have to ignore low-hanging fruit, which is a little tricky”, “I’m not sure if it’s the best way of doing things, actually — you’re torturing yourself along the way”. She always wanted to be a writer, so she wrote a story that continues to inspire young women in Iran and world over. This is the story of Maryam Mirzakhani.

Sources:

1. https://www.quantamagazine.org/maryam-mirzakhani-is-first-woman-fields-medalist-20140812/
2. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34310044
3. http://chalkdustmagazine.com/features/mathematics-maryam-mirzakhani/
4. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/34310044/icm14.pdf
5. https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2017/07/15/maryam-mirzakhanedal-winner-dies/
6. https://www.zoomit.ir/2017/7/15/189155/maryam-mirzakhani-biography/
7. https://www.quantamagazine.org/maryam-mirzakhani-is-first-woman-fields-medalist-20140812/
8. https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2017/07/15/maryam-mirzakhanedal-winner-dies/
9. https://www.zoomit.ir/2017/7/15/189155/maryam-mirzakhani-biography/
10. https://www.wired.com/2014/08/maryam-mirzakhani-fields-medal/
11. https://www.bbc.com/persian/science/2014/08/140813_l45_maryam_mirzakhani_math_medal
12. https://kknews.cc/health/a8rbglv.html

Clips:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-kAlEpiZk
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GhbMhQLQ_g
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nl8drJyeDc
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffh4Oe-k-kQ
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUBnzTTQ5jk
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC7MZv1JH8w

When I started this podcast, my plan for the first series was to talk about the women in science who have inspired me but whose contributions have been overlooked by society. I wanted to create do three episodes and then move on to other topics. I did not expect that during my research, I would find so many others who have been ignored by history, or did not receive the recognition that they deserve. For my benefit, and for the benefit of others who these stories might inspire, I have decided to continue this series.

"I wonder whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment" Chien-Shiung Wu said at a symposium on women in science. By this point in her life, she had been key member of the Manhattan Project, author of a standard read book for Nuclear Physics, and ‘broken’ one of the ‘Laws of Physics’. Chien-Shiung Wu and her experiments revolutionized our understanding of nuclear physics.

Wu was born in 1912, in a Liuhe, a small town near Shanghai, in Jiangsu province of China. She was the second child with two brothers. They were all named using a family tradition involving a phrase which can be translated to ‘heroes and outstanding figures’. Her name can be translated to ‘A strong hero’ Wu. Her father was an Engineer and an Educator. He was involved in the Republican revolution of 1911 and revolt against Yuan Shikai, the first president of the new republic in 1913. He founded the first school for girls in the region to try to improve education among girls. He and his wife visited families asking them to allow their daughters to study. He encouraged her to read and study mathematics from a young age. Wu received her elementary school education at a school for girls founded by her father. She graduated from the school and at the age of 11 moved to a boarding school. There she graduated top of her class, majoring in Mathematics. She attended Shanghai Gong Xue Public School for one year, where she met renowned scholar, Professor Shi Hu who became one of her long-term mentors.

She moved on to National Central University in Taiwan. Wu studied Mathematics but changed her major in second year to Physics. She served as a student leader during 1930-1934, during which she led several demonstrations urging the govt to take stronger actions against Japanese aggression. She led an occupation of the presidential courtyard which gained them an audience with the President. In college, Wu especially enjoyed taking classes with Professor Shi Shiyuan, who had returned from her role model, Marie Curie’s lab in Paris in 1933 after his PhD under her. He used to tell her stories about Curie and her perseverance in a field dominated by men. Wu did her senior thesis with Shi concerning crystal structure and Bragg’s law on x-ray diffraction. In a crystal, all atoms are at nearly equal distances. If the wavelength of light falling on it matches with the distance between the atoms, you get constructive interference. You can use this effect to find the distance between atoms and study the structure of crystals. She graduated in 1934 with top honours at the top of her class and earned a B.S. degree.

She worked as a teaching assistant for a year at Physics Department of the National Chekiang University in Hangzhou. Wu then moved to a research assistant position in the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics in Shanghai. There she worked on x-ray crystallography under Jinghui Gu (Zing Whai Ku), who had received her PhD in physics from the University of Michigan. With financial support from her family and encouragement from Gu, she decided to do her PhD from University of Michigan, same as Gu. She learned some English and boarded the ship President Hoover, bound for San Francisco, USA.

Shortly after reaching San Francisco she visited the University of California at Berkeley. There she met Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, who had arrived from China just a few weeks before her. She later learned that Luke was the grandson of Yuan Shikai, the president who her father had protested back in 1913. Luke gave her a tour of the campus and introduced her to Professor Ernest Lawrence. Her interest the Radiation Lab at the Physics Department, coupled with Prof. Lawrence and Luke’s persuasion, convinced her to enrol there. Additionally, she had also heard of the discriminatory policies of University of Michigan, such as their rule against women in student unions and against women using the front entrance which made her decision easier.

Wu’s official advisor was Prof. Lawrence while she worked under direct supervisor of Prof. Emilio Serge and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Her PhD thesis involved studies of fission products of uranium and their effects on nuclear reactions. She completed two separate experiments for her PhD thesis from 1938 to 1940. Her first experiment suggested by Prof Lawrence, was regarding ‘breaking radiation’ the radiation from a charged particle being deaccelerated (due to another charged particle or a field). Per suggestion by Dr. Enrico Fermi, it was a comparative study of internal and external x-ray radiation from electrons during beta decay. Beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which a beta particle, which is a fast-moving high-energy electron or positron is emitted from the nucleus. Internal radiation here refers to the x-rays emitted by electrons when they come out of nucleus during beta decay, and External radiation refers to x-rays emitted when they get deaccelerated moving through the nucleus’ electromagnetic field.

Wu’s experiments were some of the first to confirm theories regarding these effects. A few other researchers also conducted similar experiments and found contradicting results. Wu successfully defended her results by repeating the experiments and finding causes for the conflicting results. These experiments marked her entrance into the field of Beta Decay, a field she was about to make her own. The second part of her thesis was reports on her experiments under Prof. Emilio Serge. She researched production of Radioactive Xenon gas from Iodine as a product of Uranium Fission. This marked her entry into the field of nuclear fission research.

Application of her research helped resolve the ‘Xenon-Poisoning problem` in Plutonium Producing reactors at Hanford, Washington. Enrico Fermi, who had been asked to explain the fluctuations in the reactor, postulated that Wu’s doctoral thesis ‘Identification of Two Radioactive Xenons from Uranium Fission’ was relevant to this problem. Xenon gas, or specifically Xenon 135 is produced as a direct result of Uranium fission but also formed by decay of Iodine 135 which is one of the primary products of fission with a half-life of 6.6 hours. Xenon 135 readily captures neutrons; the density of neutrons is essential to controlling any nuclear reactor. Delayed build-up of Xenon as a result of Iodine decay and immediate production of it when powering up causes the peculiar fluctuations.

In 1940 at the age of 28, she received her PhD. She stayed at Prof. Lawrence’ lab for two more years. Despite being making contributions at the frontier of her fields, and endorsement from Prof. Lawrence and Prof. Serge, Wu, being a Chinese woman, could not find a job in USA.

Wu married Luke on 30th May 1942, in California Institute of Technology where Luke had transferred and did his PhD from. They moved to East Coast of USA together when Luke got a job at RCA labs in New Jersey. Wu meanwhile got a job as an Assistant Professor at Smith College in Massachusetts. Disappointed by the lack of opportunities for research, she moved to Princeton University in 1943 as a Physics Instructor for Naval Officers. A few months later, she was recruited by the Division of War Research at Columbia University in New York into the Manhattan Project to develop radiation detectors. 

The end of World War in 1945 was a good year for her. She learned her family was safe in China and had survived the Japanese invasion. She also received an offer for the position of a senior scientist with a lab of her own at Columbia University. There she spent the rest of her career, at the Department of Physics. She remained loyal to the Columbia University through her life despite offers and recognition by many other institutes. Luke meanwhile found a position designing accelerators at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island. Her son Vincent Wei-Chen Yuan was born in 1947 who later became a Physicist. Her intentions to return to China were delayed, at first by the Chinese Civil War, then China-US relations cut-off in 1949, and finally the Korean War in 1950. In 1954 she and her husband decided to become naturalized U.S. Citizens. A lot of Chinese scholars settled in US during this period out of similar concerns.

Wu gave her full weight as an experimental researcher to research into Weak Interactions and Neutrinos after this. Fundamental Forces or Fundamental Interactions are interactions which can not be reduced to more basic interactions. Four such interactions are known to exist. Gravitational and Electromagnetic, the ones which we are more familiar with, have long range effects that we see every day. The other two are Strong and Weak interactions, these work at subatomic distances and are involved in nuclear interactions. These forces can be described as fields, gravity is attributed to curvature of spacetime, as per General Relativity, and other three are discrete quantum fields. Interactions on these three fields are mediated by elementary particles called bosons described in the Standard Model.  An example can be how photon is an elementary particle of electromagnetic field.

Enrico Fermi’s work in Statistical Mechanics is one of the pillars of modern physics. His theory of beta decay was elegant and made very specific predictions, but its predictions were being contradicted by some existing experiments. So far as per the observations done, the electrons produced during beta decay were lower in energy as compared to energy spectrum shape defined by Fermi’s theory of beta decay. Wu understood and realized the problems in the existing experiments. She realized that the samples used for these experiments were thick and the electrons were being slowed because of traveling through the material. She also realized that magnetic spectrometers with Iron cores were causing disturbances in the magnetic field. She devised a better experiment taking these concerns into account. Her results agreed with the predictions from Fermi’s theory. These experiments settled all theoretical and experimental disagreements of the theory. She also investigated different types of beta decay and ‘allowed’ and ‘forbidden’ transitions to test Fermi’s theory. These and other experiments by her during this time established her as a recognized authority in the field of beta decay.

She shifted her focus from Beta Decay to other problems briefly, but her interest was rekindled when she learned of a new puzzle. Two newly discovered mesons, which are subatomic particles, called theta and tou were identical in mass, spin, and lifetime. Yet one of them decayed into two pions which is another meson, and another decayed into three pions. Despite repeated and accurate measurements, both theta and tou seemed identical or the same particle, which would mean a violation of the law of conservation parity.

When you look into a mirror, you see an identical self except few things in inverse, your left hand being right hand and right being left. Due to this, there is no way to tell if you are in this world or in the mirror world. Similarly, if the universe was reflected in the mirror, most laws of physics would be identical. Things would behave in the same way if you simply flip the special dimensions. Some properties such as mass, time, energy would remain the same, and some properties like magnetic flux, velocity, and positions would simply be inverted to conserve this identical behavior. This property is defined as parity, and is expressed as 1 or -1 to represent no inversion or an inversion of the property. Parity is multiplicative and must be conserved across any interaction, much like the law of conservation of momentum or energy. Since the two different decays produce an even and odd number of pions, and pions are intrinsically -1 parity, it would result in +1 and -1 parity, which seems like a violation of law of conservation of parity.

This puzzle had led to much debate about validity of parity as a quantum number, Professor Tsung Dao Lee of Columbia was studying the data presented on the production and decay of strange particles (actual name). The statistics available were not enough to establish a firm explanation and validity of parity in these reactions. Professor Lee and Professor Chen-Ning Yang noted that the experimentation evidence and data for parity symmetry existed for strong interactions, but the validity of symmetry had not been tested for weak interactions. The best studied weak interactions decays are beta decay processes, and since most accurate experiments back then were done by Wu, they approached her.

Wu devised a way to test parity conservation or non-conservation in weak interactions. She designed an experiment using Cobalt 60 which has a simple decay pattern and would yield an unambiguous result. Cobalt 60 can be polarised accurately using magnetic fields at very low temperatures. She worked in collaboration with National Bureau of Standards in Washington to assemble a cryostat in which the crystals of Cobalt were kept at a low temperature. Two sensors were placed at opposite ends outside to detect electrons given off by the sample and two to detect gamma photons as control. Gamma photons are produced by electromagnetic interaction as opposed to electrons which are produced by weak interaction.

Imagine placing a fan in front of a mirror such that it faces downwards. The fan in your world is rotating counter-clockwise, and since parity for direction of spin is -1, the one in the mirror world would be rotating clockwise from your perspective. And yet, both would be blowing air downwards. This is the expected result, so you cannot tell which world you are in as the one in your world is rotating counter-clockwise for you and blowing air downwards. The cobalt 60 atoms give off more electrons in one direction which is dependent on the spin. Thus, in a mirror world they would give off electrons in opposite direction and you can tell, which world you are in. This was a rather well-crafted experiment which would lead to direct observation of conservation of parity. She spent the summer of 1956 testing and recording observations. In December 1956 she found reproducible results of non-conservation of parity (P-symmetry) in beta decay.

Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this result in 1957. She was mentioned in the award acceptance speech for being the first to perform experimental verification of this phenomenon. Wu however, had to wait till 1978 to be appropriately credited for this, the very first Wolf Prize was awarded to her for this result. She later went on to say that while she never conducted research for prizes, the omission from Nobel Prize disappointed her.

Wu however quickly moved on to the next puzzle. After the magnitude and implications of her famous ‘Wu Experiment’ into parity were ascertained, Leon Lederman, Richard Garwin, and Marcel Weinrich at the Columbia Nevis cyclotron laboratory were able to detect the asymmetry in muon decay. This confirmed the universality of the concept of parity non-conservation in weak decays other than beta decay. Wu’s experiment’s results went much further than verification of parity asymmetry, the results implied that the law of ‘invariance under charge conjugation’ was violated as well. Similar to parity, say you invert the charges of all particles and invert all the electromagnetic fields as well, the results should remain the same. This is called C Symmetry. Since if P symmetry is violated, C-symmetry has to be implicitly violated to conserve CP-symmetry. Since then, CP violation has also been identified in weak interactions.

Wolfgang Pauli who had first theorised the existence of neutrino, and Wu’s close friend, was sceptical of the idea of P-Symmetry violation. The fall of a law was a shock to many physicists. In many letters between Wu and him he finally was convinced. He yielded to Wu in a letter in 1957 which said “I congratulate you” and “It is the courage to doubt what has long been believed and the incessant search for verification and proof that pushes the wheels of science forward”. Wu’s beautiful and definitive work on beta decay established the Fermi theory of weak interactions. Prof. Tsung-Dao Lee later went on to describe her as C. S. Wu was one of the giants of physics. In the field of beta-decay, she had no equal”.

Wu’s work however was far from over. In 1957 theorist Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann proposed the CVC theory, which was a major step towards unification of two of the four fundamental forces, weak and electromagnetic. When the initial experiments failed to confirm CVC, they turned to Wu, pleading “How long did Yang and Lee pursue you to follow up on their work”. She conducted experiments and confirmed their theory, significantly changing the world of particle physics. She later went on to study double-beta decay, and also ventured into biochemistry, studying DNA in sickle-cell anaemia.

Wu began to speak out on social issues, especially on equality for women in science. Speaking about it at multiple avenues and advocating government funding for education and research. She eventually returned to China but never got to see her parents and brothers again before they died. She continued advise governments on science policy and promoting education for women. She retired from Columbia in 1981. Wu, while apolitical, campaigned against government crackdown on students demanding democracy and political reform, including the Tiananmen Square incident.

During her lifetime, she faced a lot of discrimination not just for being a woman, but for being a woman of colour. She persisted and thrived in a time when racism and sexism was out in the open and in policy, based on only her work and determination. The tiny woman, stood against the laws of physics and society alike, and they bowed down to her.

1. https://wjx.seu.edu.cn/wjxen/ (Photos)
2. https://www.biography.com/scientist/chien-shiung-wu
3. https://www.cpp.edu/~zywang/dsbwu.pdf
4. https://www.cpp.edu/~zywang/wu2014oe.pdf
5. https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/
6. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%90%B4%E5%81%A5%E9%9B%84/37673?fr=aladdin
7. http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/wu-chien-shiung.pdf
8. http://cds.cern.ch/record/42739
9. https://history.aip.org/phn/11605006.html
10. https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/chien-shiung-wu
11. https://poc2.co.uk/2018/08/29/dr-chien-shiung-wu-nuclear-researcher/
12. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1957/ceremony-speech/

"When girls are in elementary school, they think they can be anyone, they can do anything. All of a sudden, they get into high school, and they get into science classes, and besides the fact that they’re doing as well or better than the boys in the class, they’re looking toward their future, and they see posters full of male scientists. They don’t see themselves on the lab bench. They don’t see where their place is". Chien-Shiung Wu, one of the most prominent scientists of 20th century who wasn't included in a Nobel prize granted for her own experiment.

Science, though a quintessentially rational profession, has been plagued by irrational social biases. Women have always been underrepresented, underpaid, and unrecognised in sciences. The lack of recognition alone does not represent the entirety of the problem. One of the biggest factors in lack of representation of 50% of the population is their systematic exclusion from the academics.

Lack of encouragement from a young age, restrictions on feminity, and outright rejections, women in STEM face these and a lot more. Sometimes however we see a star push away the dust around it and shine bright despite the challenges. Dr. Kamala Sohonie was one of such stars. Dr. Kamala had a lot of 'Firsts' to her name, leading on to become the first Indian Woman 'on whom the title of PhD (in Science) degree was conferred'.

Kamala Bhagvat was born in 1912, in a highly-educated family. Her father and uncle were among the first Chemists to graduate from Indian Institute of Sciences (Then Tata Institute of Sciences) in Bengaluru. Kamala had a supportive family and in-house role models, so it was no surprise when she decided to become a Chemist herself. She finished school at top of her batch and enrolled into B.Sc. Physics and Chemistry course at Bombay Presidency College under Bombay University. She topped her batch again and graduated with proverbial Flying Colours.

Born into an affluential family with two alumni, and topper of the University merit list, she thought her admission into IISC would be easy. She failed to account for the bias against women at that time, her application was rejected. The Director of the Institute at that time was Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman. Sir Raman was a man of principles, one of them was "I am not going to take any girls in my institute!". Which was his reply to Kamala's father and uncle's request for reconsideration.

Refusing to settle for any other institute, or stand down against discrimination, Kamala persisted. She met Sir Raman and asked for reasons and assured him that she would complete her course with distinction, and yet Raman ignored her requests. Then 22-year-old Kamala resorted to Satyagrah in Raman's Office. Sir Raman, unable to provide a valid official justification for the rejection, relented. He accepted Kamala's application with some conditions which she had to accept. He did not admit her as a regular candidate, she had to work late nights as per instructions of her guide, and she was not to 'Distract her male colleagues'.

Kamala was to later recount at an event by Indian Women Scientists’ Association (IWSA). "Though Raman was a great scientist, he was very narrow-minded. I can never forget the way he treated me just because I was a woman. Even then, Raman didn’t admit me as a regular student. This was a great insult to me. The bias against women was so bad at that time. What can one expect if even a Nobel Laureate behaves in such a way?"

Kamala wasn't the first woman at IISC, neither was she first to be treated unfairly by the management. IISC only had permanent hostels for men, women were allowed accommodation on temporary basis on the campus. She and two other candidates in the hostel faced unsafe living conditions and other issues during this time. Sir Raman's wife, Mrs. Lokasundari Raman was the Warden of Women's Hostel. Their request for a permanent hostel was denied by Ms Lokasundari on the basis that there weren't enough women to warrant this.

After an year, Sir Raman allowed Kamala to become a regular research candidate in Biochemistry. She worked under Prof. Sreenivasayya who had a great influence on her. She studied works of giants in biochemistry and also wrote letters to some. She worked on proteins in milk and legumes, a subject which had importance due to nutrition issues in India at that time. She was the first person to characterize the proteins in pulses. Kamala submitted her research in 1936 and earned her MSc degree from Bombay University. After she left, Sir C. V. Raman started allowing more women candidates into the regular research programmes.

After a brief tenure at the Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing, Bombay, Kamla moved to Cambridge University in UK in 1937. She worked under the renowned neurochemistry professor Dr. Derek Richter at Cambridge's Biochemical and Physiological Laboratory.  Under Dr. Derek, Kamala became the first Indian Recipient of ‘Scholarship from the University of Bombay for Springer Research’. Her research was about characterisation of `monoamine oxidase` an enzyme involved in metabolism of neurotransmitters. This enzyme is produced by the lever and essentially works to recycle the neurotransmitters once they have done their job. During this time, she also earned the ‘Sir Nathubhai Scholarship’. Soon after this Dr. Richter left Cambridge.

Kamala moved to work at the research lab of Dr. Robert Hill. Dr. Hill was a legend in his own right and is famous for his work on properties of Haemoglobin a,nd Myoglobin and ‘Hill Reaction’ in Photosynthesis. Dr. Hill was also famous for his research and discoveries about Cytochrome C, an enzyme known to exist in yeast and animals. It is an important compound involved in the respiration and metabolism process. Guided by Dr Hill Kamala began her research into this enzyme and discovered its existence in higher plants, proving that this enzyme was involved in the respiratory process of all aerobic organisms. Her discovery followed further research into this enzyme as a way to compare lineages and study evolution.

Impressed by her work, her mentors suggested she apply for a fellowship to work with Prof. Fredrick G Hopkins. Prof Hopkins was a Nobel Laureate whose discoveries about importance of vitamins in diet had revolutionised our knowledge of biochemistry and nutrition. She won the fellowship and was accepted into the program without any conditions in 1939. Kamala’s research during this period remains uncredited so we can only guess that she worked on biochemistry of glutathione, ascorbic acid, and related enzymes. Encouraged by Prof. Hopkins, she submitted her thesis on universality of the ‘Cytochrome C` enzyme. Her thesis, although incredibly fast at 14 months and unusually short at 40 pages long, satisfied her examiners. At the age of 27, she was the first Indian woman to get a PhD in a science discipline.

She received a lot of offers from US Pharmaceutical companies but decided to return to India. Her reasons for returning are unclear. Her son Anil says, “she was patriotic and actually returned home from Cambridge to give her might to the freedom movement, very influenced by the Mahatma. [She] did take part in rallies in Bombay. She may have earned a Nobel had she not [returned].” Her family adds, “[she] gave up jewellery and wore only khadi sarees”.

In India she held major positions at many research institutes. She served as the Head of the new Department of Biochemistry at the Lady Hardinge College, New Delhi. After which she moved to the Nutrition Research Laboratory, Coonoor as its Assistant Director. There she researched effects of vitamins and worked on quantifying vitamin content in foods. Due to lack of opportunities for growth, she was thinking of resigning from her position at the Nutrition Research Lab. During that time, she received a marriage proposal from an Actuary, Sri. Madhav V. Sohonie. As per her son Anil, this was not an arranged marriage, however it was with the permission of Kamala's father. She accepted the proposal and moved with Sri Sohonie to Bombay.

She applied for and was selected as a Professor of Biochemistry at the Biochemistry Department at the Royal Institute of Science in Bombay and continued her research into nutrition value of common foods. She also encouraged and inspired her students to research nutrition and digestibility of products which could be used by rural Indians such as paddy, milk, and legumes. Many of her research students later became distinguished scientists. President Dr. Rajendra Prasad asked her to study 'Neera', which is a traditional drink made with palm nectar for its nutrition value. She found that it greatly improved health in children and reduced mortality of pregnant women. She received the Rashtrapati Award for this contribution.

Dr. Kamala became an advisor to Arey Milk project and developed a protocol to prevent curdling of milk, she also advised on steps to improve quality. While working at Royal Institute of Science she was kept away from Directorship despite qualification for four years. She attributed this to internal politics. She was finally appointed at the Director's post of the institute after which her ex mentor and advisor Dr. Derik Richter remarked that she "made history by being the first lady Director of such a big science institute". During her period as the director of the institute, she did not deny any application based on the candidate's gender.

She was an active member of the Consumer Guidance Society of India and wrote many articles for their magazine on customer safety. She was later elected president of the Society in 1982. During her time at CGSI she also designed a kit which could be used by common people to test the purity of food ingredients. She won the National Award for Excellence and Contribution to Science in 1997. In 1998, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) invited Dr. Kamala Sohonie and felicitated her at a ceremony in New Delhi for her work. She collapsed during the standing ovation at that ceremony. She died a few days later at a hospital.

Dr. Kamala persisted despite the challenges, not only did she thrive in her career, she also managed to have relationships and a family along the way. Her children remember Dr. Kamala as 'a very remarkable lady'. Her son Anil says “she was an absolute mother, cooked the food every day, ran a clean and neat well-functioning home. Always had time for her two sons and husband. She was much admired and appreciated by everyone in the family and extended family too.”

Dr. Kamala Sohonie was a pioneer for women’s equality in India, and a role model for any woman making her way in the STEM. The times have changed, when Dr. Kamala was doing her MSc her batch had only three women. Now, women now make up nearly 38% of India's doctoral graduates (2013), but the struggle continues, as they make up only 11% of the hiring by Indian Businesses.

Sources:

1. https://gpseducation.oecd.org/Content/EAGCountryNotes/EAG2016_CN_IND.pdf
2. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002354/235406e.pdf
3. https://diversity.lbl.gov/2015/05/19/chien-shiung-wu-physicist-who-helped-change-the-world/
4. https://connect.iisc.ac.in/2019/03/letters-from-1936-about-the-womens-hostel/
5. http://www.insaindia.res.in/pdf/BS.pdf

India has had a long legacy of important contributions to science, that we are all immensely proud of. The world may think little of them but names like Dr. C. V. Raman, Ramanujan, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, and, Satyendra Nath Bose still inspire Indian Researchers. However, you don't have to look closely at any list of Famous Indian Scientists to notice that something is missing. The Women.

It is difficult to see the stars when the moon is bright, and easy for us to forget the contributions of a lot of people because they were overshadowed by a few. A lot of Indian Women have contributed to the fields of Science without their names listed in the books. Today, I wish to talk about one such person, Bibha Chowdhuri.

Talking about prominent people in science is incomplete without discussing the Nobel Prize and The Royal Society. Nobel Prize is not only about the fame, it is about prestige and legacy of how science evolves and how the future generations perceive it. However, there have been a few missteps along the way. This story is one of them.

Bibha Chowdhuri was born in 1913 in Kolkata, India (British Raj). She was from an educated zamindar (landlord) family with ties to Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose. She was the third eldest child, and had four sisters and a brother. Her mother Urmila Devi was daughter of a Brahmo Samaj Missionary, because of that Bibha and her siblings were all well-educated. Brahmo Samaj is a religious group known for liberal leanings and then radical beliefs like women should be allowed education. It is interesting to note that Neither Bibha nor her siblings ever married. Brahmo Samaj has conflicts with Hinduism and prefer to marry in their own religion. Related difficulties in finding matches could be a contributing factor. However, it is important to consider that almost 14% of women scientists never marry. According to most accounts, she led a very simple life, focusing more on her research and books during her youth. In her later years she had good relationships with a lot of prominent scientists of her time.

She attended Bethune School in Kolkata, which is one of the oldest girls' schools in Asia. It was established by John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, the first female college in India is also named after him. She attained B.Sc. degree with Honors in Physics from Scottish Church College in Kolkata. Alumni of this college include the likes of Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Not much is known about her early life.

She completed her MSc in Physics from University of Calcutta in 1936(at 23 years old), being only woman in her batch. She took a deep dive into her research immediately after that. Bibha was related to Dr. Debendra Mohan Bose (Dr. Bose) from her mother's side. Dr. Bose was nephew of famous physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose, and the future Director of Bose Institute of Kolkata. She approached Dr. Bose, requesting to join his research group studying subatomic particles. Dr. Bose was reluctant despite the family connection, he did not think he had projects suitable to be assigned to a woman. Dr. Bose was later convinced and allowed her to join. When Dr. Bose moved from University of Calcutta to Bose Institute, she moved with him (among his other fellows) and continued her research. She worked at the Bose Institute from 1938 till 1942 or 1945 (speculated). During this period, she published three consecutive papers in Nature in collaboration with Dr. Bose.

The field of particle physics has always been limited by the technology of its time. Back when she was doing her research into high energy particles, no particle accelerators were available. The only source of such particles for research was cosmic rays. She did extensive research using cloud chambers. It is an instrument which keeps chemicals like ethanol in vapor state allowing you to observe particles going through the chamber via disturbance lines caused. Think of those jet trails from flights. You can figure out a lot based on the path a particle takes in such the chamber. Such trails are very temporary, one can only observe a trail for a few seconds at most, not enough to do any calculations. She and Dr. Bose utilized photographic plates to develop a method to study high energy particles. They (or their staff) took several batches of half-tone plates to two mountains in now West Bengal and exposed to Cosmic Rays. They had one setup at Sandakphu (12000 ft.) and another in Pharijong (15000 ft).

She studied the developed plates under a microscope and compared them to control samples exposed to known particles. She observed two new particles and calculated their average mass. She had discovered pi-masons, or pions and mu-mesons or muons. These particles had been predicted to exist but there hadn't been clear experimental confirmation. She also calculated the mass of these particles as approximately 221 times and 278 times the mass of an electron. Her and DM Bose published this in various journals including 'Nature'.

She could not continue her research due to unavailability of better plates and equipment due to the World War II. Seven years after her discovery, British physicist, Dr. Cecil Frank Powell won the Nobel "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method". In his later written book, Dr. Powell acknowledged Bibha and C M Bose's work. Powell was later elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Dr. Powell's final calculations for the mass using better plates were 214 and 290 times the mass of an electron.

She moved to Manchester in 1945 to work under her Doctoral advisor Sir Patrick Blackett, another Fellow of the Royal Society. Her research was into extensive air showers. When a high energy cosmic particle collides with a nucleus from earth's atmosphere, it causes a shower of subatomic particles. She used a device invented by Sir Patrick, a counter controlled cloud chamber for her experiments. Bibha submitted her thesis in early 1949 (at the age of 36) and earned her doctorate degree in 1952 (at the age of 39). The title of 'First Indian Woman to earn a PhD in Physics' is toss-up between Bibha and Kamala Sohonie. Kamala Sohonie was a biochemist who was discriminated against by the 'famous' Dr. C V Raman. Dr. Bibha's advisor Sir Blackett went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on cosmic rays and invention of the new cloud chamber. Dr. Bibha's contributions to his observations and discoveries related to strange particles (actual name) are unknown.

Dr. Bibha came back to India after this. Dr Homi J. Bhabha recruited her into Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1949, as he was also working in the field of Cosmic Rays at that time. She was the first woman scientist hired by TIFR. Dr. Bibha joined as a research fellow in an Experimental Physics group working on cloud chambers. Dr. Bibha continued her research into extensive air showers using lead plates and cloud chambers. She devised new methods to observe particles and their properties.

Dr. Bibha left TIFR in December 1953 to briefly work at the Bengal Engineering College in Kolkata. She later joined Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad at a time when Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was its Director. She was involved in the Kolar Gold Field (KGF) experiments. They used indigenously developed sub-atomic detectors placed 700ft underground which worked in conjunction with the Extensive Air Shower array of TIFR to conduct experiments. She was involved in the setup of the experiment, arranging the site and accommodation for her assistants. She had discussed her plans to set up another experiment at Mount Abu on radio frequency emissions with Dr. Vikram Sarabhai.

After the untimely demise of Dr. Sarabhai, her new experiment was denied permission by PRL. Her contributions to KGF Experiments have since been erased from history. It appears as if she published no papers in the 14 years that she worked there. Papers written during the time by her colleagues at the experiments she helped setup, fail to mention Dr. Bibha's contributions.

She retired from PRL after this and continued her research into high energy particles. She continued to be a visiting scientist in collaboration with scientists of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, University of Calcutta and Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. She continued to publish her research until her death at 78 in 1991. Last of her papers was published in 1990.

Her collaborators and fellows went on to get national recognition, awards and prestigious positions for the experiments at KGF and TIFR. Dr. Bibha was never granted any prestigious fellowships, or received any major awards in her lifetime or since. Despite working with some of the leading physicists in the world, Dr. Bibha remains an unknown name in field of Subatomic Particles.

We know about her and her works in most parts because of research by Rajinder Singh, and Suprakash C. Roy. Without their efforts we would not know of this untold legend, the star named Dr. Bibha Chowdhuri. Women of our generation can now read about her and take inspiration from her story. While it is better now than in her time, the struggle hasn't changed much in over a hundred years. To quote her "it is a tragedy that we have so few women physicists today".

Cover Art by @at_rv (bhairavibala.com)

Sources:

1. http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/may-june-18/02%20S%20C%20Roy.pdf
2. https://www.amazon.in/Jewel-Unearthed-Chowdhuri-Scientist-Geschichtswissenschaft/dp/3844061266
3. https://www.tifr.res.in/TSN/article/Bibha%20Chowdhuri_webpage.pdf
4. https://www.telegraphindia.com/science-tech/the-woman-who-could-have-won-a-nobel/cid/1676488
5. https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/bibha-chowdhuri-donna-strick…